One episode in the defeat of American Fascism

That the American Left in the first half of the 20th century were essentially Fascists is extensively documented here. Roosevelt even referred to Mussolini as "That admirable Italian gentleman" and he tried hard to emulate Musso's "corporate state". Only the Supreme Court defeated him -- as we see below.

Do free-marketeers need their own judicial pantheon? In a recent forum at the Council on Foreign Relations, Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, argued that conservatives and libertarians ought to induct Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States into such a pantheon.

In a nutshell, Schechter is the case that saved us from a centrally planned economy. Although, Roosevelt ultimately bullied the Court into abandoning Lochner, after Schechter the New Dealers were chastened, and they never again tried anything as massive and intrusive as the NRA. Indeed, I think that you could plausibly argue that since 1935 no one in the United States has dared try anything on the scale of the NRA. Had it stood, we would have been saddled with an economy where every major sector was regulated by detailed codes that not only dealt with issues of safety or working conditions, but also things like prices, permissible production levels, the scope of consumer choice (the New Dealers thought it was bad), and the terms of agreements between government regulated cartels. Gauche as Red-baiting is in New Deal history, there is no denying that many of the New Dealers were enamored of totalitirian economic planning, and, while the NRA never came close to the state-owned monstrosities of Stalin, it would have created an economic world in the United States closer to Fascist Italy than the modern welfare state. It was ultimately less of an exercise in economic redistribution than of political domination and control of economic life.

As a myth rather than a historical or legal theory, Schechter has much to commend it. A small, religious, family business built by immigrants searching for the American dream of advancement and self-improvement gets shut down by arrogant government bureaucrats hell-bent on imposing economic idiocy on the nation. They push back, and David-like force the government Goliath to its knees. The chicken triumphs over the eagle.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



The Approach Of The Arab Pol Pot: "Peter Rodman has a column on the aftermath of the American abandonment of Vietnam which is timely since the old legion of anti-war propagandists are assembling on the virtual Mall in response to the president's speech yesterday. When I heard a radio interview with octogenarian Stanley Karnow last night --was it the first time he had been rung up by the MSM since the Bill Clinton-dodged-the-draft stories of 1992?-- I knew the president had not just touched a nerve, he'd touched the nerve in American history: Complicity in foreseeable genocide is, after all, a big deal. This is the ghost haunting the anti-war left, and the left shudders and screams whenever it floats into the room. All those millions of Cambodians didn't have to die, and all those Boat People didn't have to sail into death or exile. The Kennedys didn't have to topple Diem any more than Senators Levin and Clinton have to work to force the toppling the Maliki. And the Democratic Congress elected in 1974 didn't have to abandon South Vietnam to North Vietnam."

The UN sends itself up yet again: "The UN is lining up its 2009 Anti-Racism Conference with the same collection of players that made the last Racism Conference in Durban, South Africa a shocking anti-Semitic international scandal! UN member states Libya (the Chair), Cuba, Iran and Pakistan will meet at the Second Durban Preparatory Committee in Geneva on, August 27, 2007 to make preparations for this next disgusting Jew-bashing conference planned for 2009. As Iranian Fars News reported- Iran is very excited about leading this next UN racism conference. It was nice of the UN to allow the genocide advocates to lead the effort, wasn't it?"

Iraqi leaders sign unity accord: "Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have signed a reconciliation deal, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says. The accord was the second step towards rebuilding Iraq's political process, Mr Maliki said, after four Kurdish and Shia parties formed a new alliance. A committee formed by the parties had "accomplished some solutions", he said. Issues under discussion include holding provincial elections and easing a ban on former Baath party members in the civil service and military. Mr Maliki was speaking at a news conference alongside Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, Shia Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Massoud Barzani - president of the Kurdish region."

India is the No. 2 terrorism target: "India has since 2004 lost more lives to terrorist incidents than all of North America, South America, Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together. All of these vast swathes of the globe lost a total of 3,280 lives in terrorist incidents between January 2004 and March this year. India alone lost 3,674 lives over the same period of three years and three months."

US Strikes Inside Pakistan!... 30 Rebels Dead! : "US-led forces and Afghan troops struck Taliban positions inside Pakistan in fresh clashes with the Islamic militia that left at least 19 local Taliban dead, security forces said on Sunday. The US-led coalition said it received permission from Pakistan to attack across the border on Saturday, but this was denied by the chief military spokesman in Islamabad. Afghan and coalition forces used mortars and artillery fire to destroy insurgent attacking positions on both sides of the border after a military post in Afghanistan came under attack, the coalition said in a statement. "The Pakistani military gave permission for the Afghan National Security Forces to fire on the targets located within Pakistan," it said. Six insurgent positions were destroyed, three on each side of the border, and more than a dozen insurgents were killed."

The brains of men and women are, indeed, different: "Women really are better than men at shopping. And they really do prefer pink. And, surprisingly, it is possible that these facts are connected. The first conclusion was drawn by Joshua New of Yale University and his colleagues. The second was drawn by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in England. The connecting theme is that in the division of labour that forms the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.

Czech Republic Joins the Flat Tax Club: "The cabinet's package of public-finance reforms passed the final vote in the Chamber of Deputies yesterday thanks to two unaffiliated opposition MPs who voted with the governing coalition. ... Starting next year, the legislation will gradually reduce corporate and personal-income taxes, cut social spending and introduce cash fees for health care. It still requires Senate approval and President Vaclav Klaus's signature, but no resistance is expected from either. .The reform package will gradually lower the corporate tax rate from today's 24 percent to 21 percent next year, 20 percent in 2009 and 19 percent in 2010. The existing progressive taxation of personal income at 12 to 32 percent will be replaced by a flat tax of 15 percent in 2008 and 12.5% in 2009. The personal income tax will be calculated from super-gross income, including social and health insurance contributions paid by the employee and the employer. This means effective taxation will be 23.1 percent of gross income in 2008 and 19.4 percent in 2009."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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The Horror! The Horror! The paranoid style of the American left

The second part of the heading above is an allusion to a famous article, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics", by Richard Hofstadter, published in Harper's Magazine in November 1964. Hofstadter argues that both the Left and the Right can be paranoid but the examples he gives of paranoia on the Right are a little unfortunate in view of subsequent events. He said that a suspicion of covert Communist influences at the highest level of American government was paranoid. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, it was revealed that the FDR/Truman government was in fact riddled with Soviet agents

The fascists are coming! Or rather, they're already here, installed in the White House, planning like mad to subvert the Constitution and extend their reign in perpetuity, having first suppressed and eviscerated all opposition and put all of their critics in jail. Thus goes the rant of America's increasingly unhinged left. If only, sigh many Bush partisans, wondering when this administration will get out of the fetal position and show some fighting spirit. To them, as to most reasonable observers, the White House shows the chronic fatigue of a two-term presidency reaching its final year. Nonetheless, paranoia about what Bush and Co. are up to preys on the minds of many progressives, who have progressed, in this case at least, beyond reason.

It Can Happen Here, says Joe Conason, in his book of the same name, and in fact it already has started: George W. Bush and his coterie are the very picture of the pious and scheming homegrown fascisti that Sinclair Lewis described in his 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here. Similarities abound. In Lewis's novel, "Buzz Windrip" (Bush), an illiterate dweeb with sleazy charm and low animal cunning, backed by Lee Sarason (Karl Rove), a smooth and duplicitous political mastermind, becomes president, cooks up a fake war to extend his own power, cows Congress, corrupts the courts, bankrupts the country, and all but destroys the free press. The core of his power is a sinister nexus of theocrats joined at the hip to corporate interests, and you can tell how evil they are by their proclaimed love of country, and their incessant talk about God. In their endeavors, they are backed by the Hearst newspaper empire (Fox News), the only one left after all other outlets have been shut down.

Fox News looms large in the liberal panic about creeping fascism--an immense smoke machine pumping poison gas into the atmosphere 24/7, against which there is neither escape nor defense. This theory of the pervasive malevolent power of Fox rests on a quip by anchor Brit Hume that the network played a decisive role in the 2002 midterms, which Conason seems to take seriously, and the scholarly output of two obscure professors arguing that Fox swung the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 as well. "Citing what they call 'The Fox Effect,'" Conason informs us, "professors Stefano Della Vigna of the University of California at Berkeley and Ethan Kaplan of the University of Stockholm found that the network convinced 2 to 8 percent of its non-Republican viewing audience to 'shift its voting behavior toward the Republican party.'" If they say so. But there is no corresponding mention of the NBC-ABC-CBS-Time-Newsweek-New York Times "effect," and what its impact on voters might be.

At the same time that Conason is looking back to a fictional past in America, Naomi Wolf--last heard from in 2000 advising Al Gore to dress in earth tones--is looking back to a real past in Europe, and seeing troubling parallels. In 4,600 overwrought words, she explained to the readers of the Guardian that there are ten steps to "Fascist America" and Bush is taking them all. He has whipped up a menace (the war on terror); created "a prison system outside the rule of law" (Guantanamo, to which public dissidents, including "clergy and journalists" will be sent "soon enough"); developed "a thug caste .... groups of scary young men out to terrorize citizens" (young Republican staffers who supposedly "menaced poll workers" during the 2000 recount in Florida); set up an "internal surveillance system" (NSA scanning for phone calls to and from terrorists). An airtight case, this, and leading to just one conclusion: "Beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable.... that it can happen here."

Well, this explains many things. It explains why poor Cindy Sheehan is now sitting in prison; why Bush critics like CIA retiree Valerie Plame have been ostracized by the corporate media and are wasting away in anonymity; why no critic of Bush can get a hearing, why no book complaining about him can ever get published, and why our multiplexes are filled with one pro-Bush propaganda movie after another, glorifying the Iraq war and rallying the nation behind its leader.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Cindy Sheehan is running for Congress; Valerie Plame is rich and famous; the young Republican "thugs" made all of one appearance seven years ago--chanting "Let us in!" when Miami-Dade County vote counters planned to move to a small inner room with no observers present; and press censorship is now so far-reaching that you can't even expose a legal, effective, and top-secret plan to trace terrorists without getting a Pulitzer Prize. " .....

Over and over, they do what they claim their opponents are doing, want to do, or have done: make vast leaps of faith on almost no evidence, get carried away on large waves of emotion, build towering edifices on small collections of factoids, omit, deny, or denounce all contrary evidence, build fantastical schemes which they project on the enemy, put two and two together and get 384. People are entitled to say what they want, but it takes something other than reason to look at raging debates and discern in them fascistic oppression, to look at large Republican losses (wholly in line with a sixth-year election) and see massive fraud on the part of the losers, to look at today's South and see John Calhoun's, to draft both the Bushes (and the entire Republican party) into the Confederate Army, 150 years after the fact. Facts on the ground have no effect on their fantasies, which exist in a realm of their own.

Let's give the last words to Mark Crispin Miller [Himself a well-known paranoid of the Left so he speaks from experience], as he told the blog Buzzflash in February 2006. [See also here]:

"That sort of warped perception comes from extreme paranoid projectivity: the tendency to rail at others for traits or longings that one hates and fears inside oneself..... We're dealing with a movement that is anti-rational. It's faith-based ..... it's a movement that believes what it believes, and it believes what it believes is right. ... It believes what it wants to believe. If it hears contrary evidence, it comes up with evidence of its own. .... This is not a movement that the rational can ever shame into surrendering by merely demonstrating its illogic to its followers. ... Paranoia .. is based on fear, and therefore on a kind of 'logic' that's impervious to evidence and quite incapable of learning from experience. ... Paranoia is an atavism, deep within us all."

Much more here

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Brookes News Update

Financial markets reach hurricane force: Right up to the second half of July, world equity markets were still raging ahead in utter denial of the spreading cracks in the credit boom, with both the S&P and the emerging markets indices making new highs in that time. This was despite the fact that all the technicals were signalling the need for caution
Labour market reform and productivity: who got right and who got it wrong: Our right has completely buggered up labour market reform. The actual consequences for productivity of freeing labour markets were completely overlooked. The same goes for investment and growth. This has allowed leftwing critics of reform to gloat over its 'failures'
No-show Castro on his last legs: Good news from Cuba: Castro's failure to make a public appearance on his 80th birthday suggests that the dictator is now too ill to govern. Further reports reinforce the opinion that this sadistic thug is nothing more than a barely breathing cadaver
The New York Times' treasonous propaganda: The New York Times has become a criminal organisation that systematically traffics in treason and disinformation. It's hatred of America becomes more transparent with each passing day
It's not just the Scott Beauchamp media scandal: Media offenses include lying and fabricating, doctoring photos, plagiarism, conflicts of interest, falling for hoaxes, and overt bias. Some are hilarious, such as an action figure doll being mistaken for a real soldier. But the point is that media dishonesty and bigotry has reached plague proportions

There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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The Racist EU

What fun! That old British stirrer, Gerald Hartup, has scored a hit. Hartup regularly draws attention to Leftists violating their own regulations

The European Commission is to remove the comic "What me a racist?" from its Europa website following a complaint from civil liberties group Liberty and Law taken up on its behalf by the Commission for Racial Equality [CRE].

The glossy A4 comic produced in 1998 to combat racism was published in all the official European Union languages. It was "designed for teachers to use when addressing the subject of racism with young people" and has been on its website since 2001.

Liberty and Law complained about the offensive racial caricatures of the black characters portrayed, reminiscent of the treatment given to Africans in Herg,'s 1931 book Tintin in the Congo.

The CRE made rapid progress with the Commission for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. On 21 August the CRE told Liberty and Law that the Commission underlined to them that it was "not their intention to be offensive to any group or individual and are looking into the matter". Just a few hours later Commissioner Spidla's spokesperson asked the Communications Directorate General to remove the comic from its website.

Source. The comics concerned are at the moment still up here.

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"Prisons are worth every penny"

Post below lifted from Surber. See the original for links

Norwegian officials estimate that after sentencing, 20 percent of Norway's criminals don't bother to show up for prison. That is because until very recently it was not against the law in Norway to skip out of prison. Norway's legislature recently changed that law, but prison officials haven't gotten around to implementing the law. This makes me wonder about the 80 percent of Norway's convicted criminals who do show up for prison. Are they really that stupid?

Not surprisingly, Norway's crime rate is double that of the United States. In 2006, Norway had 86.3 crimes reported for every 1,000 people, according to Statistics Norway. In the United States, reported crimes were 39.8 per 1,000 people, according to the FBI. The violent crime rates are similar: 5.5 per 1,000 people in Norway, 4.7 per 1,000 people in the United States.

No, for violent crime, one has to head north to Canada, where there are 9.5 violent crimes for every 1,000 people. That figure is down 5 percent from 1996. The numbers are from Statistics Canada. That's double the violent crime rate in the United States.

Anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention. We are told that the United States leads the world in its prison population. This may be true. Roughly 1/2 of 1 percent of Americans are in prison. The upside is that is nearly 1.4 million robbers, muggers, killers and rapists who are not out robbing, mugging, killing and raping.

A certain percentage of inmates are in prison for drug offenses. One estimate is over 20 percent. But drug offenders are mainly dealers who are serving time in federal prison. Getting into Mount Olive usually requires more than smoking a joint or two....

The state of West Virginia spends about $100 million on prisons. That is about 2.5 percent of the state's $4 billion general revenue budget. The prisons are worth every penny. Prisons keep more children from being molested. Prisons keep more people from being killed. Prisons keep more drunken drivers off the road. Some say the nation is becoming a "prison state." I grew up in a high crime area in Cleveland where no one ventured out after dark. That's a prison state. The choice is this: Either have a high incarceration rate or have a high crime rate. Norway and Canada have made their choice. America has made hers.

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ELSEWHERE

Iraqi terrorists caught along Mexico border: "President Bush's top intelligence aide has confirmed that Iraqi terrorists have been captured coming into the United States from Mexico. The confirmation comes from National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who talked about the situation in an interview with the El Paso Times recently. "Coming up through the Mexican border is a path," McConnell said. "Now, are they doing it in great numbers? No, because we're finding them and we're identifying them and we've got watch lists and we're keeping them at bay." But, he said, "There are numerous situations where people are alive today because we caught them (terrorists)."

Humans not just "big-brained apes," : "In discussions on animal intelligence, it's fashionable to play up animals' smarts and their similarities to humans. And many studies provide fodder for such thinking. But a new study, reassessing much past research, offers a different perspective: it argues that key humananimal differences are often overlooked. Humans are more than just "bigbrained apes," as Charles Darwin called them in 1871, wrote the author, psychologist David Premack. Premack didn't challenge the findings of past studies. But he argued that they often focus on animalhuman similaritiesstriking us repeatedly with examples of how animals are "so like us"while glossing over the vast realms of activity where they're really quite unlike us. That leads to the false idea that animals have humanlike abilities, he said. Only since the late 1990s has research challenged that notion, by revealing microscopic features unique to human brains, Premack wrote. These studies have found "enhanced wiring, and forms of connectivity among nerve cells not found in any animal." One such finding, he added, involved a newfound type of neuron, or brain cell, that's far more numerous and larger in humans than in any of their ape relatives.

TV losing out -- good for bloggers: "Time spent on the internet is set to surpass time spent watching TV in the average American household, according to the results of an IBM survey released Wednesday. Overall, 19% of respondents said they spend six or more hours a day on the Internet, versus 9% for TV. More telling, 60% reported that they spend one to four hours using the Internet, versus 66% who spend the time watching TV. Of course, the time spent on the Internet includes growing consumption of online video, according to the global survey of about 2,000 respondents (including 885 Americans) conducted in April-June of this year. Globally, 67% of consumers say they watch video on the Internet, or would like to do so.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Russia: "At least it's patriotic"

The year 2007 may well be best remembered in future as the year Russia completed its transition to Fascism. All the pieces are now in place. Critics of the government have been imprisoned or murdered; there is virtually no independent media left; homosexuals are persecuted; the major industries are once again under government control; military muscle is being flexed with resumed bomber patrols around the world and -- as we see here -- the Vladimir Putin personality cult is ratcheting up. And I have posted previously on the "Nashi" youth movement -- pic below.



As a Libertarian, I regard Fascism as thoroughly antithetical to what I would like to see but I do see one redeeming feature of Russian Fascism: At least it's patriotic.

The Left in the Western world have slimed their way into power across the board. Whether or not right-of-centre politicians are elected, the Left still controls most of academe, the media and the bureaucracy. And the Left do their best to squash the feelings of love of country that come naturally to those of us blessed enough to live in the advanced societies of the world. Patriotism may even be legally suppressed as "hate speech" on occasions. "Hate" is so broadly defined by the Left that any belief in the superiority of Western civilization can qualify as "hate".

And yet we live in a world where cultural self-confidence is badly needed. The Islamics have plenty of confidence in their culture and are quite determined to shove it down our necks any way they can. We could squash them like bugs if we wanted to (nuke Mecca, for instance) but the Left have created a climate in which any defence of our own values is disallowed. So we let the Islamists continue with their depredations and killings. We seem unable to say that our culture is superior and that those who attack it will live to regret it.

I see no such self-doubt in modern Russia. They will not allow the Islamics to browbeat them in any way and will squash them like bugs if they try. It could be that Russian Fascism ends up as the only remaining alternative to Islam outside of Asia. I don't really think that is likely but if it should, I would be emigrating to Russia. Russian scientific and cultural achievements are of the first rank, even if their political leadership has always left much to be desired -- and with my blue eyes and fair skin I would look right there.

And let it be noted that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a strong supporter of the Church. As a Russian, he may even be a believer. The Russians are a very religious people, despite all that the Communists could do. So Russia will undoubtedly continue to be a transmitter of the great heritage of Christian thought.

I am an atheist but sitting in a great stone cathedral and reflecting on the wonderful words of the wise men of the Bible while listening to (say) the Twofold Litany of St. John Chrysostom would be a great pleasure to me. If you have not seen an Orthodox church service, you aint seen nothin'. They do all the stuff that we in the West have long forgotten: Rude screens, golden crowns, the lot. There is a short (excerpt) sound file of the Twofold Litany here -- sung by the great Russian bass, Feodor Chaliapin. I find it heart-stopping.

There is of course the unhappy possibility that Putin's Russia will be expansionist -- like Hitler and Mussolini -- but a comparison with Franco and Peron -- Fascists who kept out of international involvements -- would be equally defensible. Only time will tell. Some sort of re-absorption of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia is certainly on the cards and would be greeted by little more than raised eyebrows in the West.

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ELSEWHERE

The big issue: "The current political squabbles in America between the liberal, socialist left and the moral capitalist conservative right are merely a skirmish line on the edge of two colliding civilizations. The combatants are not the free market, individual centric conservatives and libertarians vs. the Nanny State, socialist plantation liberal straw bosses. Not at all! The Elephant in the room is Islamofacism - and President Bush and his brilliant General Petraeus, at the head of the greatest Army of our lifetime, are decisively engaged. What is at stake dwarfs the '08 elections topics of single payer medical care, unfunded social security, or our billions of dollars held by China and Saudi Arabia, for economic blackmail. Life as we know it -- the profound blessings of the Age of Enlightenment and the spectacular technological progress in the arts and sciences that resulted -- is, absent a courageous defense, doomed to be devoured in the maws of a barbarian Islamofacism if President Bush's war leadership fails."

Some justice -- The lost-luggage airline is also now the out-of-pocket airline: "British Airways was fined $US300 million yesterday after pleading guilty to antitrust charges and admitting fixing some prices on international flights. Britain's largest airline could have faced fines closer to $US900 million but the US Justice Department credited the company with cooperating in the case. A federal judge agreed. Representatives of British Airways pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy for colluding with rivals to fix fuel surcharges on international flights. Earlier this month, authorities in London announced $US246 million in fines for the company in the parallel trans-Atlantic investigations. As part of its plea deal, British Airways is admitting that between mid-2004 and early 2006, it colluded with Virgin Atlantic over the surcharges, which were added to fares in response to rising oil prices. Virgin Atlantic is not named in the Justice Department case and is not expected to face a fine in Britain because it reported the misconduct to authorities."

Pathetic Britain is riddled with gang crime and they worry about this: "Two 21-year-old women will appear at Chichester Crown Court to answer charges of outraging public decency after they lifted their tops and exposed their chests to CCTV cameras as they sat on a beach. The gesture at Worthing, West Sussex, last month could lead to a six-month jail sentence for Abbi-Louise Maple and Rachel Marchant. The prosecution told Worthing magistrates that two 15-year-old boys were walking past when the women flashed, and that there was a family play area near by. The women deny the charges."

Belgium: Muslims want ban on Easter eggs: "If headscarves are banned for employees who work at the desk at city services in order to guarantee neutrality of services, then we demand that no Christmas trees be set up in city buildings and that no Easter eggs be given out." Antwerp trade union representative Badia Miri said this on Wednesday in the Gazet van Antwerpen."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Speculation as news

It is worth noting that the Sunday Times, it seems, went into hyperventilation mode yesterday, with a front-page article headed, "Britain faces Iraq rout says US." It then picked up the theme in a focus piece, this one headed "Army chiefs fear Iraq exit will be Britain's Saigon moment," telling us that: "British troops will start to pull back from Basra next month, and the withdrawal is predicted to be 'ugly and embarrassing'".

However, not only are both pieces co-authored by Mick Smith, the man who thought RG-31s were "too big for Basra", with Washington input from Sarah Baxter, the pair rely for the substance of their reports on an American called Stephen Biddle. He, it appears, is the "US".

Yet, although he is described as a "military adviser to president George W Bush", he is no such thing. The best he can claim - like many of his ilk - is to have presented "briefings" to the president and senior political and military leaders - as well as "White House staff". This Washington-speak for being one of the numerous denizens of the beltway who is called upon by the White House and the Pentagon to air his views. By no measure can he be considered an "advisor" in the sense that his views are either influential or trusted - or in any way representative of the official US view.

More prosaically, Biddle is a senior fellow in defence policy at the left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). According to a 2006 paper, he was a strong critic of Bush's prosecution of the war in Iraq but, in a presentation to the House of Representatives in July, he was edging to qualified support of the surge.

Nothing of the main thesis that the two Sunday Times journalists have to offer, therefore, has any more status than informed (but sometimes partisan) speculation from a minor-league American academic.

More here

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Above is a bit of Leftist propaganda that quotes verses from the Old Testament which command severe punishments -- including stoning -- for various misdeeds. It is another example of the Left's desperate attempts -- attempts that I mentioned yesterday -- to assert "moral equivalence" between Christians, Jews and Muslims. The fact that Christians and Jews DON'T go around stoning people whereas Muslims (particularly in Iran) regularly DO stone people, is not mentioned. But Leftists always have had an uncomfortable relationship with reality. They much prefer simplistic theories.

Failure of female radio: "To thunderous acclaim from the liberal intelligentsia, a team of feminist icons - including Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda - last year launched a women-run radio network. The mainstream media dutifully parroted press releases describing the launch as a "breakthrough" for women in the male-dominated world of talk radio. The Boston Globe, for example, proclaimed that "GreenStone gives women an outlet." Business Week described the venture as "Talk Radio Minus The Testosterone." Last Friday, GreenStone Media signed off for good... No doubt Laura Ingraham has a bigger audience than the whole network had."

Democrats insult the troops and undermine their leaders : "Democrats and their allies in the political activist media are working hard to pre-empt the September report on Iraq by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. They live in fear of the facts that, if delivered without political spin, could be fatal to their party's lose-the-war-at-all-costs White House strategy. They are also fearful that General Petraeus himself may become a powerful public symbol untarnished by partisan politics. So they are doing the only thing they know how: slinging mud at Petraeus himself."

UK More "Islamophobic" Than US & EU: "Britons are more suspicious of Muslims than Americans and other Europeans, according to a poll for the Financial Times newspaper published on Monday. Just 59 percent believe it is possible to be a Muslim and a citizen of their country, a smaller proportion than in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or the US - the other countries surveyed. The poll findings suggests terrorist plots against the UK, including the deadly 7 July 2005 London bombings, have hardened attitudes towards Muslims living in Britain. [Odd that!]

The "Democrats" cheer as Bush democracy agenda fizzles: "The Washington Post today writes about the Bush plan to promote global democracy as outlined in his courageous 2005 Inauguration Address. This democracy plan, you would think, would be something that both parties could agree upon. After all, don't the democrats like to believe that their party stands for human rights and women's rights? Sadly, this was not the case. Since his reelection, Democrats could not even agree with the president on promoting global democracy. Sick. Democrats declared war on Bush a long time ago. They were not about to start working with their enemy when there was much more important work to be done like destroying his presidency at all costs."

Brits fleeing crazy Britain: "The number of UK residents leaving the country in search of a better life abroad has soared and migration experts said that this year's non-existent summer [Global cooling?] will only add to the exodus. Figures released today by the Office of National Statistics showed that 385,000 people left Britain in 2005-2006, more than in any year since the current method of counting was introduced in 1991. Of those, around a quarter of a million were British, although there was a sharp increase in those of foreign origin leaving the country. The flow of long-term migrants into the UK hit 574,000 - 25,000 lower than in the previous year - meaning that there was net immigration of around 190,000. Last year, about 3,000 nurses and midwives left Britain to work in Australia - more than double the number making the same trip ten years ago. Around 8,000 nurses emigrated to work abroad last year."

The primitive roots of Islam: "Historians say that pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped the moon-god by bowing in prayer toward Mecca several times a day. They would also make a pilgrimage to Mecca, run around the Kabah seven times and throw stones at the devil. And they fasted for one month, which began with the appearance of the crescent moon and ended when the crescent moon reappeared. These same rites form the core of Islam today: Muslims bow in prayer toward Mecca; they make a pilgrimage to Mecca and run around the Kabah seven times; and they still throw stones at the devil. They also observe the fast of Ramadan, which begins and ends with the crescent moon. Moreover, the ancient symbol of the pagan moon-god, the crescent moon, is the official symbol of Islam; it appears on the flags of Muslim countries, as well as on the tops of mosques and minarets everywhere."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Wising up to newspapers

Excerpt:

I noticed that there were two sorts of topics in the papers. They were topics I had first-hand knowledge of, and things of which I knew little. And I noticed that without fail, articles written about anything I had intimate knowledge about were absolute nonsense. And I began to notice the little word shifts and shimmies and angles that the authors and editors would use to grind whatever sort of ax they had. And I'm pretty dumb, of course, just like God made us all, but I figured out that it was unlikely that the newspaper was only getting the stuff I knew about wrong, on purpose. And by looking for the method of obfuscation I recognized in things I knew about, I could see what they were trying to fool me with in things I knew nothing about.

You can read the newspaper and find things out, still. But the process is like panning for gold. There's a lot of sand you've got to swish around to get the tiny, glittering pieces of information. And so I abandoned the papers with a heavy heart, because I loved them so. They were the nursemaids of Twain, and Mencken, and Bierce, and a multitude of others that I adore. The people working there now can't even spell, or figure out the difference between nouns and verbs. I wouldn't allow them anywhere near an adjective, even though if they could, they'd print only adjectives. Nouns and verbs lead to the reporting of facts. I think they'd get a rash if they tried it now.

The New York Times et al., like to tell people that the internet is killing their business. Please. I can't be the only one that noticed that the front page is the editorial section now, and the editorial page has the quality and usefulness of unhinged rants. I'm not really in the market for either. And I'm too young to read the obituaries.

More here

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"Moral equivalence" is an old preachment of the Left. Since they say that there is no such thing as right and wrong they may even believe it (though what would be "moral" about the equivalence in that case I do not know). They used to say that the Soviet Union was no better or worse than the USA but that lie exploded long ago. The latest version is that Muslims are no worse than Christians and Jews -- and the evidence is just as selective as it was in the days of the USSR (Does anybody even know what USSR stands for these days?). So the Communist News Network has just aired a program which makes a pathetic attempt to prove that Jews are just as bloodthirsty as the Jihadis are. There are some derisive comments on the program here and here.

Are Americans getting poorer? The NYT (predictably) says so. But it is a crock.

Sickening: Hillary says: "I'm in an Inter-Racial Marriage". And they let her get away with it.

More airport idiocy: "For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the Florida holiday was a reward for schoolwork. But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports in both Britain and the US as a suspected terrorist. The alerts were triggered because Javaid, from Manchester, shares his name with a Pakistani deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity. The family missed their flight home after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. Javaid's passport is now marked that he has been security checked."

More Leftism from Amnesty: "A senior Roman Catholic bishop has resigned from Amnesty International in a row over the human rights group's new policy on abortion. The Right Rev Michael Evans, the Bishop of East Anglia, stood down after 31 years in protest at support for abortion facilities in developing countries. His highly critical comments come as thousands of other Catholics who belong to Amnesty are considering resigning after the policy change at a meeting last week. The organisation's international committee voted to support the decriminalisation of abortion and women's access to legal and safe abortion facilities. But Bishop Evans, 56, who recently composed a prayer that has been printed on postcards for an Amnesty campaign, said that Catholics would find it difficult to support a human rights group that advocated violence against unborn children"

Men don't like Hillary: "Appealing to female voters as a sister-in-arms won't be enough to win the White House, and a potentially worrisome gender gap has emerged in polls between levels of male and female support for Clinton. A July poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers by the University of Iowa found that Clinton had 30 percent support among women and 18 percent among men. By comparison, there was no difference in gender support for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who got 21 percent from both men and women. The same poll found that 32 percent of women strongly agreed that Clinton was electable, while only 14 percent of men did."

France becomes helpful: "The surprise visit paid to Iraq by France's new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, this week is another move by Sarkozy to shed Chirac's legacy. No better man than Kouchner could have been chosen to signal France's change of policy. For Kouchner is one of a handful of people in the West who recognized the murderous nature of Saddam's regime and called for its overthrow as early as the 1980s... The French change of attitude destroys one of the key arguments of those in the United States who opposed the liberation of Iraq. The argument is that by toppling Saddam, the United States alienated its major allies, notably France. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, used the argument as a campaign theme, echoing the views of other leading figures of the American left such as Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and Noam Chomsky, not to mention the financier George Soros. The message coming from France is all the more discouraging for the American left because Kouchner, a lifelong Socialist, is the most popular figure of the French left, according to opinion polls... Sarkozy has made it clear that he wants France on the side of the United States and other democracies in the global war against terrorism. No one expects France to send troops to Iraq; nor is that necessary. But by clearly indicating whose side France is on, Sarkozy has already repaired part of the damage done by Chirac and his entourage."

Democrat mantra coming unstuck: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her outspoken anti-Iraqi war colleague, Rep. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, are licking their wounds after a popular fellow Democratic leader - Washington Rep. Brian Baird, a senior Democratic whip on the Democratic Steering Committee, who was president of his 1998 freshman class - just returned home from Iraq to say that the U.S. military is "making real progress" in the war-torn country. Furthermore, Mr. Baird told the Olympian newspaper, and despite Mr. Murtha's long-standing wishes for an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, "the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves ... and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Why bloggers enrage journalists

Excerpt:

All of these arguments about the need for reporters to report facts are dishonest. No one challenges this notion. No individual blogger could conceivably devote enough hours of his spare time (or his blogging time, if he does this full-time) to develop, confirm, and write a true bit of first-hand journalism once a week or so.

And the MSM knows that. They know their job on that score is secure -- simply because no one but a salaried reporter could put in forty hours a week working on a single story. (Especially because 99% of stories are not terribly important or remarkable, but still need to be reported -- but obviously no blogger could write up the Kalamazoo Crime Blotter three times a week and expect to be read by more than three thousand people as an absolute ceiling.)

What they are worried about is the decline in their influence as to matters not directly related to data-collection and not even remotely related to reportage. They're worried that they're losing their ability to shape (and mislead) public opinion in ways they find best for the public good. These people did not get into journalism, after all, to report on 3M's quarterly earnings advisory. They got into journalism to change things.

And they're desperately scrabbling to hold on tight to that bit of undeserved, undue influence by leveraging their entirely-unrelated qualifications to collect and disseminate raw information into a role they actually desire and feel they are worthy of-- a certified, credentialed priesthood of general wisdom, weighing in expertly on matters of politics, scientific and technological ethical dilemmas, foreign policy and of course military strategy, etc.

Source

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Brookes News Update

Blame central banks for sinking share markets: What a bizarre monetary spectacle. With one hand central banks raise interest rates to curb credit expansion while using the other hand to inject liquidity (credit) into the economy to prevent a recession that they think is caused by rising interest rates. Talk about economic schizophrenia
It's not the housing market that threatens the US economy: The recent financial turmoil had analysts and investors sweating bullets. What is being ignored is that the central banks that are seen to be salvaging the situation are the ones that caused it, particularly the fed. The US manufacturing index reveals that there could still be a lot of steam left in the current boom, assuming the fed allows the monetary expansion to continue
Stock market, interest rates and the business cycle: The turbulence in America's subprime market is being blamed for the current international financial crises, proving once again that our economic commentators are largely clueless on such matters
Is Russia's Power on the Decline?: Russia's power and influence are waning. If it were not for oil revenues and an unattentive Western media this would be reported, along with speculation about how long the thuggish Putin can hold on to power
Standing up to Islamic terrorism: Organizations that apologize for Islamic terrorists on a regular basis, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, are engaging in character assassination when they equate honest criticism of Islamic extremism with anti-Muslim or anti-Arab prejudice
Muslim terrorists chiefs have been igniting their followers by the word 'Jihad' - Holy War: Even the leaders of some Muslim countries are not able to resist temptation. Their true intent is a war against everything that is un-Islamic - that includes the West.
Monetarism and the US economy: Economic commentators are badly misreading economic history in comparing America's monetary policy with that of Japan's. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the Fed has swallowed the myth that money supply cannot be controlled and that there is no link between inflation and artificially low interest rates

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According to Vanderleun, the individual above is female.

Brussels: Anti-American demonstration OK, anti-Sharia demonstration banned.

Norwegian woodenheads: "Norway had a unique way of handling crime. Criminals were tried, convicted and sentenced just like anywhere else. But then it was left up to the convict to decide if he would actually serve his sentence. And of course, this does not work. Small wonder that Norway's reported crime rate is double that of the United States. Police in Oslo are overwhelmed by crime. And a Norwegian newspaper reported that 70% of "Norwegians have no faith that they'll get any help if someone breaks into their home." The problem is that until recently, there was no law that required a criminal to report to prison to fulfill his sentencing."

UK TV provides a forum for Islamic supremacism and the delegitimization of Christianity: "There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him. With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven... However, Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican canon and spokesman for the Barnabas Fund, which works with persecuted Christians, accused broadcasters of double standards. Mr Sookhdeo, who was born a Muslim and converted to Christianity in 1969, said: "How would the Muslim community respond if ITV made a programme challenging Muhammad as the last prophet?"

Black South Africa: "Thabo Mbeki's presidency faced a crisis yesterday after sensational claims that his controversial Health Minister was an alcoholic who jumped the queue to receive a new liver. The allegations about Manto Tshabalala-Msimang came as Mr Mbeki was already facing growing criticism for standing by the minister, who believes that a diet of olive oil, beetroot and garlic is the best way to combat South Africa's Aids pandemic. The claims were made across three pages of the Sunday Times, the country's biggest-selling weekend newspaper. They included allegations that the minister, while in exile in neighbouring Botswana in the 1970s, was convicted of stealing jewellery, hats and handbags from hospital patients."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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WESTOPHOBIA?

Comment received from Larwyn below -- finding a common thread in some recent reports. Her links are very up-to-date and worth following:

Dr Sanity would like to call what Islam preaches daily to their masses, the hatred and fear of the West A SERIOUS CASE OF WESTOPHOBIA. I would be happy if we would finally call it something to counter "Islamophobia", if Infidelophobia or Kaffirophobia won't do, Westophobia is fine with me, with this one disclaimer: Westophobia can't really be used to only label Islamists, it encompasses every sect and ideology who hates Western civilization. The LEFTISTS suffer from Westophobia and Condi's getting a case of it, trying to talk the vibrant capitalistic democracy of Israel into an appeasement of the thugs of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and therefore, also Iran.

What other than Westophobia can explain the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair by the left over the Jose Padilla Conviction? For Le Monde -- Al Jazeera on the Seine -- "Jose Padilla's guilty verdict symbolizes the excesses of America's war on terror."

Had certain parties in our State Dept and Media not suffered from Westophobia, the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq would have been handled quite differently with some real "excesses" of America's power. Too worried about the Arab Street , who hate us anyway, Powell & Armitage allowed Turkey to deny us our assault route down from the North via Turkey, who the ADL does not wish to offend by calling the genocide of the Armenians, genocide. Of course, 80% of ADL members probably vote for Dems, which proves their self hate. Has to be self-hate when a people make decisions to fight a war with Rules of Engagement that give all the benefits to the enemy.

So the big question now, will Westophobia, this self hate, influence G. W. Bush to become LBJ in planning the bombing of Iran? That's what SANE is asking, that's what Pierre is asking. That's what this cadre of "where do we find such men" are probably wondering, as they deal with the many, who should long ago have felt our full wrath -- those responsible for Defeating the enemy at Donkey Island near Ramadi

And what is an even greater proof of the rampant Westophobia than the Bestialization of Intelligence and Lost Posterity as we build monuments to our enemies. Some get it Burnett Sr: "Withhold my son's name from 9/11 Islamic Memorial"

And some wish to hurry our destruction by any means: Global Warming Litigation Planned By Blue States, even though the climate alarmists were wrong before

They would burden us with taxes for Socialized Medicine the Hillary Way and even Soviet Sanitarium Redux.

No wonder we're confused and some think Hurricane DEAN is God's Wrath against Bush

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The airheaded John Edwards, a would-be President, did not even know that Cuba's healthcare system is government-run! It seems that he is even more of an empty vessel than Obama. No wonder his wife so often has to speak for him. But facts never do matter to Leftists. They just KNOW what should be done.

The Associated Press has a crazy Leftist fantasy story about U.S. police being unable to get enough ammo because it is all being used in Iraq! Have these guys no idea about how the market works? The whole fantasy is amusingly debunked here

Blind man wins case after Muslim cabbie refused dog: "A blind man denied service from a Muslim taxi driver for "religious reasons" has been awarded $2,500, the result of a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal discrimination settlement reached on Friday and made public yesterday. It was cold outside, and raining. Mr. Gilmour was attempting to return home after spending time with two friends at a West Vancouver coffee shop. A taxi was called. On arrival, the driver would not allow Mr. Gilmour's golden retriever, Arden, into the car. An argument ensued and the cabbie then drove off, without his two passengers. Mr. Gilmour complained to North Shore Taxi the next day. He was told that the driver's Muslim faith prohibits him from associating with dogs, hence his refusal to provide service. Mr. Gilmour decided to fight back. He hired a lawyer, himself a Muslim, and filed a formal complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal, alleging discrimination. The tribunal was to hear Mr. Gilmour's case on Monday; however, a settlement was reached last week with Mr. Saidy and his taxi company."

Deadly British bureaucratic bungling: "Emergency services were expected to begin a search this morning for two people still missing after a fire erupted in a Cornish hotel. The fire has already claimed the life of a man who tried to escape by jumping from the third or fourth floor of the Penhallow Hotel, in Newquay. Anybody left in the rubble would have little chance of survival, police said. As the rubble of the hotel smouldered yesterday, the Fire Brigade faced criticism that firefighters were hindered by a 90-minute wait while vital equipment arrived from Plymouth, more than 50 miles away. The fire spread at devastating speed in the early hours of Saturday as firefighters waited for an aerial ladder platform. Both Newquay and Truro, 15 miles away, possess the equipment but both were under repair."

Anti-Israel "Greens": "Young "climate change protesters" attacked an Israeli warehouse yesterday near the Heathrow Airport outside of London where they are campaigning against Heathrow's planned expansion. They took down the Israeli flag at the warehouse... And... They hoisted the Palestinian flag. It was part of their protest against carbon emissions(?)"

There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Another Leftist blames Israel

British Liberal politician, Jenny Tonge, is best known for her remark that the "pro-Israeli lobby has got it financial grips on the Western World" -- a classic bit of antisemitism in which the money-grubbing Jew is pictured as controlling the world's financial system. So it should come as no surprise to see the following fantasy from her:

"The Palestinians have been brought to their knees. A cultured and well-educated society with high skill levels has been reduced to a Third-World country. The statistics are there for all to see."

I have no doubt that there have always been some cultured and well-educated Palis but to call cultured and well-educated a society mainly made up of peasant farmers and goatherders is just the usual Leftist lying propaganda.

Tonge is more airheaded than most, however. Leftists are supposed to love primitive tribes but she forgot that bit after a trip to Botswana paid for by an agency of the Botswana government. Speaking of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of the Kalahari, she suggested they were trying to "stay in the Stone Age", described them "primitive" and said they were "holding the government of Botswana to ransom" by refusing to be evicted from their lands. The Left rounded on her over that so her latest fanciful remarks may be an attempt to restore her credit in Leftist circles.

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ACORN not so nutty

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has its roots in a coalition of welfare rights organizations which, since 1970, has fought for "social and economic justice" - in this, the land of social and economic freedom. The coalition experienced serious internal stresses when it was joined by organizations such as the Vietnam Veterans Organizing Committee (VVOC) and the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC), presumably a group that would punish the rest of us by...what?...refusing to accept their unemployment checks?

ACORN claims to represent more than 350,000 member families and 850 neighborhood chapters in 100 cities across the US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, and they credit themselves with successful campaigns for better housing, healthcare, schools, job conditions, etc. Their members participate in local meetings, work on campaigns, and pay the organization's expenses through membership dues and grassroots fundraisers."

That is the public face of ACORN and it all sounds quite benign...until we take a much closer look at the role they play in helping organized labor swell the ranks of uninformed, disinterested, but obedient Democrat voters. For example, just what are those "grassroots fundraisers" that ACORN relies on to pay their neighborhood "activists?"

In a July 30 Wall Street Journal article, titled "Whose Ox Is Gored," John Fund reveals the true face of ACORN. He tells us that, in 2006, ACORN registered more than 540,000 low-income and minority voters nationwide and deployed more than 4,000 get-out-the-vote workers. But since it was organized labor and the Democrat Party who paid by-the-head for the new voters, we have to wonder how many of the newly registered voters are actually living persons.

Fund reports that, on July 26, 2007, local prosecutors in Seattle indicted seven ACORN workers on charges of submitting phony registrations in what Secretary of State Sam Reed, himself a Democrat, terms the "worst case of voter registration fraud" in state history. (If Reed is actually capable of recognizing vote fraud, one wonders how he was able to preside over the Democrats' brazen theft of the Washington governors office in 2004.)

In the present case, ACORN workers turned in registration forms containing the names of such well-know "Washingtonians" as Dennis Hastert (former House Speaker from Illinois), Frank Rich and Tom Friedman (New York Times columnists), as well as totally fictitious persons such as Stormi Bays and Fruto Boy. The addresses given were all traced to various homeless shelters. According to the indictments, of the 1,805 registrations submitted by ACORN, only nine have been confirmed as valid. Election officials are still trying to validate the remaining 34 registrants.

Election officials first became suspicious when ACORN delivered the registrations too late to meet the October 7, 2006 deadline. And when the registrations were refused, ACORN officials, fearing that they would not be paid the per-capita bounty, as promised, threatened to sue the county. However, when four ACORN workers were indicted by the U.S. Attorney in Kansas City on November 1, on charges of submitting some 14,000 bogus voter registrations, the Seattle ACORN officials dropped their threat.

Source

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Maine Democratic Party Stalks-Harasses Sen. Susan Collins (Video)

Post below recycled from Gateway Pundit

Democrats are already harassing Republicans a year before elections! And their violent tactics continue from assaulting conservative speakers, to spitting on soldier amputees, to ambushing speakers on stage, to screaming at conservative speakers during public events, to strange protests at senate hearings.

Former Nazi Youth member Hilmar Von Campe compares this behavior by democrats to the former storm troopers in Nazi Germany who would shut up the opposition.

Now the Maine Democratic Party is stalking Republican Senator Susan Collins a year and months before the election.
The stalker posted his video at the Maine Democratic YouTube page:

This violence worked well with Senator Allen last election so look for the democrats to continue their stalking this election cycle

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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WHY I AM A FREDHEAD

The summary below is excerpted from a hostile source but I still like what I hear:



Thompson, who is expected to enter the presidential race formally in September, but plans to campaign in Iowa on Friday, was not known as a big-ideas guy and was hardly a heavy-hitter when it came to legislation during his Senate career from 1994 to 2002. Still, he was considered a reliably conservative vote on economic, security and social issues alike. He backed Bush's tax cuts, a prohibition on a late-term abortion procedure and voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq.

More prominently, he established a reputation for working to limit the role of the federal government and protect states rights - an issue that remains very important to him and, perhaps, is an indication of what may lie at the root of his candidacy.

Broadly, he favors a strong federalist approach that emphasizes personal liberties and fiscal conservatism. "Centralized government is not the solution to all of our problems and, with too much power, such centralization has a way of compounding our problems," Thompson wrote in a recent column on his Web site. "This was among the great insights of 1787," when the Constitution was adopted, "and it is just as vital in 2007." He adds: "How we draw the line between federal and state roles in this century, and how we stay true to the principles of federalism for the purpose of protecting economic and individual freedom, are questions we must answer."

Thompson also:

* Splits with Bush on immigration, opposing the president's comprehensive immigration law overhaul bill and, instead, argues for increased border security as well as full enforcement of current federal immigration laws. The issue has divided the GOP, and Thompson is seeking the support of Republicans who object to illegal immigrants getting a path to U.S. citizenship. In one online column, he says: "Federal law must be enforced, or our neighborhoods will continue to be the scene of chilling and lurid crimes committed by those who broke the law in the first place to come to America."

* Appears to take a hard-line approach to foreign policy. He criticizes the United Nations, saying the world body "seems to oppose human freedom rather than promote it." And, in one particularly incendiary commentary for ABC radio in April, he carried on about the perception of the U.S. around the world and its relationships with certain countries. He assails Mexico on immigration, arguing that leaders there "apparently have an economic policy based on exporting their own citizens while complaining about U.S. immigration policies that are far less exclusionary than their own." He adds: "The French jail perfectly nice people for politically incorrect comments, but scold us for holding terrorists at Guantanamo." Thompson saves his most aggressive comments for Russia, contending that ex-KGB agents "apparently" run the country, use their oil wealth to engage in blackmail, and dispose of people who cross them. "Oppose the Russian leadership, and you could trip and fall off a tall building or stumble into the path of a bullet."

* Emphasizes individuals' right to keep and bear arms, as well as the right to own and keep property. He suggests in one online piece that the Virginia Tech massacre could have been deterred had those who were at least age 21 and met certain criteria been allowed to carry concealed weapons on school grounds. In the Senate, Thompson voted against requiring criminal background checks for purchases at gun shows.

* In a recent commentary, he assailed a 2005 Supreme Court decision giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

* Calls Bush's tax cuts a "success story" that helped grow the economy and says: "Letting them expire would amount to a tax hike of historic proportions." He also says the president should hold the line on spending.

More here. And another interesting post on Fred here

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ELSEWHERE



Soviet-style patience required for life in bureaucratized Britain: "A customer who was trying to report a problem to BT [British Telecom] was kept hanging on the company's helpline for 20 hours without getting an answer. Hannah King, 51, rang an 0800 number after a telephone line she had paid for was not installed at her new home. From 1pm until 9pm she listened to piped music and a recorded message every few minutes. She gave up until the next morning, when she dialled the same number and waited another eight hours without a reply. The next day Mrs King tried between 8am and noon - but again no one from BT picked up. "I was so frustrated and angry I broke down in tears," she said. "It is a helpline for goodness' sake, surely a company as big as BT can answer their phones." Mrs King, who has a new flat at Milford Haven, called the helpline after an engineer failed to turn up. She said: "The problem is that if something goes wrong you have no other point of contact with BT. You have to ring their helpline number and you end up listening to music and voice prompts without ever speaking to a real person."

Europe rediscovers babies: "Europe is in the midst of a baby boomlet after fretting for two decades that European women weren't having enough children to replenish graying populations and sustain economic growth. At least 16 countries, stretching from Iceland to Italy, saw modest upticks in their birthrates from 2004 to 2006. Roughly half the continent has reversed declining fertility rates or halted their slide, says William Butz, president of the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB), which tracks worldwide population trends. The increases are small, but the trend bucks a 20-year decline"

Why rebuild New Orleans?: "The Drudge headline read: "MUCH OF NEW ORLEANS IS STILL VULNERABLE TO FLOODING." It linked the New York Times report: "One Billion Dollars Later, New Orleans Is Still at Risk." Of course most of New Orleans is still "at risk" of flooding; most of the city is in a flood zone because most of the city is below sea level. The nation is throwing away money rebuilding the city because of racial politics and piss-poor reporting. Democrats charged that George Bush "ignored" New Orleans because he hates black people. To prove them wrong, Bush promised to rebuild New Orleans bigger, stronger, better. This is machismo politics at its worse. Whatever happened to mitigation? FEMA rules say you don't rebuild in the flood zone. You move people to higher ground. There are flood zones all over the place - even in the hills of West Virginia. Intelligent people do not build there."

Do we need a t-shirt tax to save jobs?: ""Virtually all of America's 114 million households (most of them 'working families') buy shirts every year. In fact, last year, Americans bought 4.5 billion T-shirts and other apparel tops, 94.3 percent of them imported. That's an average of almost 40 shirts per household. But very few U.S. workers -- fewer than half a million -- make their living producing T-shirts, other apparel and textiles. Yet Obama and the union audience clearly side with the one third of one percent of American workers who still make shirts and other clothing rather than the 99.7 percent who unambiguously gain from being able to buy their clothing at more affordable prices. Democrats and their union allies are not representing 'working families' against big corporations, but a small and declining share of U.S. producers and their employees at the expense of the vast majority of American households."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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